The price drops have affected SSDs of all capacities from every major manufacturer, including OCZ, Crucial, Samsung, Corsair, and Intel. OCZ's Vertex 3 is one of the most heavily discounted, with drops measuring from 50 to 73 percent depending on drive capacity, while Intel's 320 series SSDs have remained relatively stable since the drive's introduction.

These discounts are explained partly by the fact that technology becomes more affordable as it becomes more common, but there are technical reasons as well: all SSDs have controller chips that play vital part in determining the drive's stability and performance, but most SSD resellers don't manufacture their own controllers, choosing rather to use controllers from companies like Marvell or SandForce. Multiple companies using the same chips in similar products means that one of the easiest ways to differentiate your drive is by dropping prices. Case in point, the Intel 320 SSDs that have more or less retained their price premium since their introduction use one of Intel's proprietary controllers, while the Intel 520-series drives that have fallen along with everyone else use a SandForce controller also used by OCZ, Corsair, and others.

In any case, the good news is if you're looking to buy an SSD, the drives have never been faster and the prices have never been lower. If you don't understand why you should be in the market for an SSD, our in-depth guide on the subject should enlighten you.

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Yeah, this is the important bit. We're all used to seeing massive fluctuations in the prices of memory as manufacturers adjust their output. In April 2009 4GB of DDR2 cost $43, in Oct of the same year it hit $75 and was up to $99 by May of 2010. RAM prices only started coming down towards the end of 2010 and have been slowly declining since then. Moore's Law has little to do with the price compared to questions of whether chip makers are ramping up or scaling down their production.

While a lack of controller variety may be a minor factor, the most important cause is clearly the current dive in NAND prices. We've already seen Samsung restrict output in an attempt to stabilise the retail prices of SD cards. So are these price drops going to stick, or will they just be a temporary blip before the main NAND foundries squeeze off production?

I wonder is there is a theoretical minimum price for NAND? Spinning disks have improved the GB/$ performance largely through scientific breakthroughs. NAND is pretty static, and die shrinks seem unlikely, so there in theory should be a GB/$ ceiling. Anyway, that would make the article more interesting.

Why are die shrinks unlikely?

To construct the structure needed for Flash requires a 18nm minimum size. Current flash is mostly 22nm, and 20nm has been announced. That leaves us with very little room for increased density. Also the smaller the size the more spare area has to be set aside as write cycles decrease with smaller sizes dramatically(MLC@45nm had around 10k cycles, at 22nm its about 2-3k cycles).

Flash is almost at the end of the road in terms of what can be packed into given space. There is probably still room for manufacturing improvements(increased yield per wafer), as well as other forms of cost streamlining, but data density is not going to increase by more than another 10% or so on a given chip.

This is why Memristers and other next gen solid state storage are so appealing right now, everyone knows flash is EOL.

Moores law. It's been about 18 months. Therefore, with all things being equal, prices should be 50%.

Prices were inflated to begin with, and the ultrabook push has increased demand for SSDs significantly this year. We are getting a huge ramp up in production to deal with the fact that thin is in. Plus, tablets are never going to use spinning HDDs.

What the fluff. Has NAND gotten cheaper? Are companies selling drives at a loss? Are 520 prices changing due to being broken (encryption wise?) Are current prices the new norm or a temporary price war? Do you have anything to offer other than some fluffy "prices are lower because of competition" space filler?

Moores law. It's been about 18 months. Therefore, with all things being equal, prices should be 50%.

Prices were inflated to begin with, and the ultrabook push has increased demand for SSDs significantly this year. We are getting a huge ramp up in production to deal with the fact that thin is in. Plus, tablets are never going to use spinning HDDs.

Moores Law only states that every 24 months you'll have a higher density of transistors which doesn't say anything about price or speed

What the fluff. Has NAND gotten cheaper? Are companies selling drives at a loss? Are 520 prices changing due to being broken (encryption wise?) Are current prices the new norm or a temporary price war? Do you have anything to offer other than some fluffy "prices are lower because of competition" space filler?

What I was going to say. Lots of drivel and handwaving, then some weird stuff about volume of SSD controller chips. Hello? Those chips cost $1 - $2, netting out to maybe $10 at most of the retail price of an SSD. The controller chips could be free and it would have minimal impact on retail SSD pricing.

Now, NAND prices on the other hand... and markups... and exchange rates... and about fifty other relevant factors. Ugh.

I wonder is there is a theoretical minimum price for NAND? Spinning disks have improved the GB/$ performance largely through scientific breakthroughs. NAND is pretty static, and die shrinks seem unlikely, so there in theory should be a GB/$ ceiling. Anyway, that would make the article more interesting.

What the fluff. Has NAND gotten cheaper? Are companies selling drives at a loss? Are 520 prices changing due to being broken (encryption wise?) Are current prices the new norm or a temporary price war? Do you have anything to offer other than some fluffy "prices are lower because of competition" space filler?

What I was going to say. Lots of drivel and handwaving, then some weird stuff about volume of SSD controller chips. Hello? Those chips cost $1 - $2, netting out to maybe $10 at most of the retail price of an SSD. The controller chips could be free and it would have minimal impact on retail SSD pricing.

Now, NAND prices on the other hand... and markups... and exchange rates... and about fifty other relevant factors. Ugh.

The author is making a basic argument based on marketing theory. There are two ways you can make your product look better than a competitor's: price and quality (usually referred to as differentiation). In this case, the majority of new consumer SSDs appear to use MLC flash with a Sandforce controller. I.e. THEY ARE ALL THE SAME. So differentiation is out. That leaves companies with one option if they want to sell their product: cut the price.

I agree that there are other factors that the author neglected to mention though, such as manufacturers getting economies of scale more than they were before.

What the fluff. Has NAND gotten cheaper? Are companies selling drives at a loss? Are 520 prices changing due to being broken (encryption wise?) Are current prices the new norm or a temporary price war? Do you have anything to offer other than some fluffy "prices are lower because of competition" space filler?

What I was going to say. Lots of drivel and handwaving, then some weird stuff about volume of SSD controller chips. Hello? Those chips cost $1 - $2, netting out to maybe $10 at most of the retail price of an SSD. The controller chips could be free and it would have minimal impact on retail SSD pricing.

Now, NAND prices on the other hand... and markups... and exchange rates... and about fifty other relevant factors. Ugh.

You misunderstand: the price of the controller itself has little to no bearing on the price of the drives. The fact that so many drives are using the same controller (which results in drives that act and perform mostly the same) means that price becomes one of the of the only reasons to buy company X's drive rather than company Y's. This is a big part of why selling prices for PCs are in the toilet - you've got a whole bunch of companies (HP, Dell, Lenovo, etc.) who are all trying to sell you the same thing (an Intel processor running Windows).

NAND prices are going to be a factor as well, I agree. The same thing is happening there as happened to the RAM industry: competing companies are all ramping up production simultaneously to get their piece of a booming market, and you end up with prices in freefall because of oversupply. Micron just posted its fourth consecutive quarterly loss yesterday, due in part to bad NAND prices: http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-201 ... 13840.html

I wonder is there is a theoretical minimum price for NAND? Spinning disks have improved the GB/$ performance largely through scientific breakthroughs. NAND is pretty static, and die shrinks seem unlikely, so there in theory should be a GB/$ ceiling. Anyway, that would make the article more interesting.

Moores law. It's been about 18 months. Therefore, with all things being equal, prices should be 50%.

Prices were inflated to begin with, and the ultrabook push has increased demand for SSDs significantly this year. We are getting a huge ramp up in production to deal with the fact that thin is in. Plus, tablets are never going to use spinning HDDs.

What is your rational behind your assertation that prices were inflated for a new product, that had to be researched, developed and gain market share?

I would argue that they were priced accordingly early one and as the demand ahs increased the prices have dropped, like you mentioned with regards to the increased demand based upon ultrabook uptake.

I wonder is there is a theoretical minimum price for NAND? Spinning disks have improved the GB/$ performance largely through scientific breakthroughs. NAND is pretty static, and die shrinks seem unlikely, so there in theory should be a GB/$ ceiling. Anyway, that would make the article more interesting.

Why are die shrinks unlikely?

To construct the structure needed for Flash requires a 18nm minimum size. Current flash is mostly 22nm, and 20nm has been announced. That leaves us with very little room for increased density. Also the smaller the size the more spare area has to be set aside as write cycles decrease with smaller sizes dramatically(MLC@45nm had around 10k cycles, at 22nm its about 2-3k cycles).

Flash is almost at the end of the road in terms of what can be packed into given space. There is probably still room for manufacturing improvements(increased yield per wafer), as well as other forms of cost streamlining, but data density is not going to increase by more than another 10% or so on a given chip.

This is why Memristers and other next gen solid state storage are so appealing right now, everyone knows flash is EOL.

What the fluff. Has NAND gotten cheaper? Are companies selling drives at a loss? Are 520 prices changing due to being broken (encryption wise?) Are current prices the new norm or a temporary price war? Do you have anything to offer other than some fluffy "prices are lower because of competition" space filler?

What I was going to say. Lots of drivel and handwaving, then some weird stuff about volume of SSD controller chips. Hello? Those chips cost $1 - $2, netting out to maybe $10 at most of the retail price of an SSD. The controller chips could be free and it would have minimal impact on retail SSD pricing.

Now, NAND prices on the other hand... and markups... and exchange rates... and about fifty other relevant factors. Ugh.

I'm wondering where you found those price estimates for the controller chipsets? Either my GoogleFu is weak, or you've some inside information that the public isn't privy to. Either one is distinctly possible.

My finger is hovering over buying an SSD. However I'd like to wait till this steep fall in prices looks like bottoming out. Any ideas as to when plunging SSD prices will bottom out?

(2009 Macbook. Used to have a full 500GB drive, however after finishing some contracts I have a lot more drive space than before, so a 240-ish GB SSD looks like a valid proposition. The Macbook is only SATA II, but SSD random access speeds and helping with page thrashing after filling my maxed 4GB RAM looks to be a winner.)

My finger is hovering over buying an SSD. However I'd like to wait till this steep fall in prices looks like bottoming out. Any ideas as to when plunging SSD prices will bottom out?

(2009 Macbook. Used to have a full 500GB drive, however after finishing some contracts I have a lot more drive space than before, so a 240-ish GB SSD looks like a valid proposition. The Macbook is only SATA II, but SSD random access speeds and helping with page thrashing after filling my maxed 4GB RAM looks to be a winner.)

Hard to say - my advice would be to wait for a good sale, pounce on it, and then stop looking at SSD prices. :-)

Incidentally, if you're using a mid or late 2009 MacBook (MacBook 5,2 or 6,1, I think), you should actually be able to bump that to 8GB RAM if you want—Apple's stated RAM limits are often lower than what the hardware will actually support. See http://www.weedoorsbanging.com/archives ... b-ram.html

Yeah, this is the important bit. We're all used to seeing massive fluctuations in the prices of memory as manufacturers adjust their output. In April 2009 4GB of DDR2 cost $43, in Oct of the same year it hit $75 and was up to $99 by May of 2010. RAM prices only started coming down towards the end of 2010 and have been slowly declining since then. Moore's Law has little to do with the price compared to questions of whether chip makers are ramping up or scaling down their production.

While a lack of controller variety may be a minor factor, the most important cause is clearly the current dive in NAND prices. We've already seen Samsung restrict output in an attempt to stabilise the retail prices of SD cards. So are these price drops going to stick, or will they just be a temporary blip before the main NAND foundries squeeze off production?

The Intel 330 is only a few months old and the successor to the one mentioned in the article. It's a SandForce model that uses (if I recall) Intel's own firmware. Got one on order from newegg for $90 shipped (for email newsletter subscribers) after rebate, the 120GB.

As reflex-croft said, NAND die can't get much smaller/denser without calling into question further "instant poof" reliability concerns. At 3K they're still good enough that for *most people* they'll just upgrade the thing (or whole computer) before the SSD croaks.

What's interesting is that manufacturers can alter the reliability to higher/lower than today's HDDs to a certain extent based on what the market will bear on price and availability. The easy prediction is cheaper prices and lower reliability that mostly goes unnoticed. Which is probably a good deal all around.

To construct the structure needed for Flash requires a 18nm minimum size. Current flash is mostly 22nm, and 20nm has been announced. That leaves us with very little room for increased density. Also the smaller the size the more spare area has to be set aside as write cycles decrease with smaller sizes dramatically(MLC@45nm had around 10k cycles, at 22nm its about 2-3k cycles).

We're currently at 25nm for most SSD and Toshiba announced to have drives with 19nm out in a couple months. Write cycles are a theoretical problem, not a practical one. I have no idea where the "18nm minimum size" comes from, but the only source I can find with a quick search is another post made by you. Considering that Intel, Sandisk, Toshiba and Samsung are looking to produce 10nm they must have missed your memo as well.

I'm eagerly awaiting the Micron/Crucial mSata sticks as the Intel ones are low capacity and getting very long in the tooth. For some bizarre reason Micron made sure a whole bunch of sites did reviews on the sticks in early April, yet also made sure you can't actually buy them anywhere even today!

My finger is hovering over buying an SSD. However I'd like to wait till this steep fall in prices looks like bottoming out. Any ideas as to when plunging SSD prices will bottom out?

(2009 Macbook. Used to have a full 500GB drive, however after finishing some contracts I have a lot more drive space than before, so a 240-ish GB SSD looks like a valid proposition. The Macbook is only SATA II, but SSD random access speeds and helping with page thrashing after filling my maxed 4GB RAM looks to be a winner.)

Hard to say - my advice would be to wait for a good sale, pounce on it, and then stop looking at SSD prices. :-)

Quote:

Incidentally, if you're using a mid or late 2009 MacBook (MacBook 5,2 or 6,1, I think), you should actually be able to bump that to 8GB RAM if you want—Apple's stated RAM limits are often lower than what the hardware will actually support. See http://www.weedoorsbanging.com/archives ... b-ram.html

Thanks, but apparently performance plunges when more than 6GB of that 8GB is used - see a second hand quote from OWC http://silverpanther.wordpress.com/2011 ... -2009-8gb/ Also 8GB (2x4GB) of DDR 2 is rather expensive now - £70-£100-£130 depending on where you look. It's over double the price of 8GB of DDR3 SODIMMS.

Given that I can transfer a SSD to my next computer, but I won't have any use for 8GB of outdated RAM, nor will it raise the resale value of the macbook by much, the SSD seems better value.

To construct the structure needed for Flash requires a 18nm minimum size. Current flash is mostly 22nm, and 20nm has been announced. That leaves us with very little room for increased density. Also the smaller the size the more spare area has to be set aside as write cycles decrease with smaller sizes dramatically(MLC@45nm had around 10k cycles, at 22nm its about 2-3k cycles).

We're currently at 25nm for most SSD and Toshiba announced to have drives with 19nm out in a couple months. Write cycles are a theoretical problem, not a practical one. I have no idea where the "18nm minimum size" comes from, but the only source I can find with a quick search is another post made by you. Considering that Intel, Sandisk, Toshiba and Samsung are looking to produce 10nm they must have missed your memo as well.

This is one article on the topic, but I read a whitepaper on this from Intel two years ago as well discussing minimum feature sizes due to how flash physically operates. While there *could* be breakthroughs to bring it to smaller sizes(and there is research there) the pace has dramatically slowed in the past two years(in this article, from 2010, 25nm is common, I am fairly certain Intel and Micron moved to 22nm last year).

As for write cycles they are a very real problem. In my own tests drives lasted between 3-24 months, although our testing was more intensive than a typical user. I would not use them in an enterprise environment without a routine depreciation schedule. As a consumer, I would not use one without a backup solution since a failure can result in the entire drive becoming unresponsive(disk based storage can still be recovered, flash is almost impossible to get recovered).

That said, I do have situations where it makes sense. If you are a frequent upgrader(cycle limitations will never hit you). If your machine is used lightly(grandma's web browsing machine). If you actually perform backups. If you store your data on something more recoverable. Etc etc.

Andrew Cunningham / Andrew has a B.A. in Classics from Kenyon College and has over five years of experience in IT. His work has appeared on Charge Shot!!! and AnandTech, and he records a weekly book podcast called Overdue.